What are the pro's and cons of doing IT UAT harmonization?

SIT UAT harmonization is a concept where by both teams have synergy from begining of STLC phase. SIT team shares test cases with them. UAT team reviews it, Any duplicate test cases between SIT and UAT are removed. This results in both teams executing unique test cases and thereby resulting in cost savings.

3 Answers

I'm sorry, I'm not familair with this term, I dare say it is not (yet) a popular term.

The traditional advantage of separating UAT from system test is one of catching holes by thinking differently, similar to the old "firewall" between dev and test.

By sharing materials the two blend together.

Most companies I work with have removed the firewall between dev and test; they see the cost of the separation and expensive handoffs as more cost than value. I suspect the same may be true between system test and UAT.

Yes its true from my experience & is a good practice that we did in our previous company. I can tell its like traceability Matrix which meets all our client requirements together from this. When Unique test cases are executed QA Time efforts will be quality deliverable with cost savings within the time line too.

In my recent project, as a Test Manager I have gone a level further to dilute the borders between SIT and UAT. I implemented "Joint testing", here we formed a virtual team comprising of SIT + UAT + Business resources. The team was lead by SIT Test Manager and Test Architect.

This team came up with a common test plan, test cases and executes them.

Benefits:

Faster time to market the product, as we save time in planning, prepare and execution test phases.

Helps to uncover business perspective type issues early in the game.

$$$$ savings for the business

Cons:

At times, we spent more time in reporting defects and keeping UAT/Business managers informed of everything.

Tricky to keep all resources on same page.

For more details on my experience with Joint Testing, you can write to me on [email protected].